147 articles from WEDNESDAY 28.9.2022

NASA-Built Weather Sensors Capture Vital Data on Hurricane Ian

Portal origin URL: NASA-Built Weather Sensors Capture Vital Data on Hurricane Ian Portal origin nid: 483063Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 - 17:40Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: A pair of microwave radiometers collected data on the storm as they passed over the Caribbean Sea aboard the International Space Station.Portal image: Hurricane...

Team designs system to create bioplastics

A team of Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists has developed a system that uses carbon dioxide, CO2, to produce biodegradable plastics, or bioplastics, that could replace the nondegradable plastics used today. The research addresses two challenges: the accumulation of nondegradable plastics and the remediation of greenhouse gas emissions.

A bionic pancreas could solve one of the biggest challenges of diabetes

In a recent trial, a bionic pancreas that automatically delivers insulin proved more effective than pumps or injections at lowering blood glucose levels in people with type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a serious condition that causes a person’s level of glucose, or sugar, to become too high because the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin, a hormone that keeps blood glucose under...

Two new discoveries shed light on the mystery of how cells manage stress

In new research recently published in the journal Cell Reports, a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst delved into the mysteries of how cells weather stress. Using bacterial cells, the researchers discovered that a damage-repairing enzyme, called ClpX, can not only mutate to fix multiple cellular issues but can respond to changing levels of cellular energy to help keep a...

New study evaluates 'urban-wildland juxtapositions' of 36 US cities

For some, the great outdoors is nothing but a short walk away, while for others escaping the city is an odyssey in itself. While jogging in the wildlands surrounding Salt Lake City, Professor Jeff Rose wondered if there was a way to measure the border between undeveloped land and urban areas.

Team reports on a fungus that simultaneously combats two of the worst threats to banana plantation yields

The banana borer Cosmopolites sordidus and the disease Fusarium wilt, caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum, are among the most harmful pests that threaten the livelihoods of banana growers, who face major challenges in attempting to control them. The former is a species of weevil that bores into the plant's rhizome (the underground stem that produces roots and shoots), weakening its...

Engineering robust and scalable molecular qubits

The concept of "symmetry" is essential to fundamental physics: a crucial element in everything from subatomic particles to macroscopic crystals. Accordingly, a lack of symmetry—or asymmetry—can drastically affect the properties of a given system.

Hubble detects protective shield defending a pair of dwarf galaxies

For billions of years, the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxies—the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds—have followed a perilous journey. Orbiting one another as they are pulled in toward our home galaxy, they have begun to unravel, leaving behind trails of gaseous debris. And yet—to the puzzlement of astronomers—these dwarf galaxies remain intact, with ongoing vigorous star formation.

Encouraging girls to roleplay as successful female scientists could help close the gender gap in STEM

Make-believe doesn't usually have a place in laboratory settings, but research just published in Psychological Science suggests that girls may persist longer in science activities when they pretend to be successful female scientists. This kind of play-based intervention could help close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields by boosting girls' early engagement...

Understanding virtual memory CD8+ T Cells

Virtual memory CD8+ T cells (TVM) are a relatively recent discovery in humans. A new review discusses what is known about them from mouse models and their cellular equivalents in humans, as described in the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (JICR).